Ivey Loses Court Battle Over £7.7m Winnings

The hearing of poker player Phil Ivey case is over now and he has lost his bid to recover £7.7m ($10.2m) amount of winnings from a casino in London.

The Ivey is now 40-years old and has been fighting the case in different courts to recover the sum after he successfully played a version of baccarat called as Punto Banco at Crockfords Club in 2012 in Mayfair and won the amount.
The hearing took place at the Supreme Court and the court was to consider whether dishonesty was a necessary element of the offense of cheating.

In Supreme Court, Ivey challenged a majority decision of 2016 appeal dismissing his case opposite Genting Casinos of UK, which owns Crockfords. According to the Genting, the technique that Ivey used to call as edge-sorting, was not the right and appropriate, on the other hand, according to Ivey he won the game fairly.

In the Supreme Court, the five justices unanimously maintained the court’s majority decision on appeal, which dismissed the case of Ivey claiming that dishonesty was not a necessary element of “cheating”.

In the appeal in the court, Lady Justice Arden said, the 2005 Gambling Act provided that someone may cheat “without dishonesty: depending on the situation, it may be enough that he simply interferes with the process of the game”.

The action of Ivey and is co-player Cheung Yin Sun clears that they interfered with the process used by Crockfords playing the game of Punto Banco with Ivey.

Stephen Parkinson, who was representing Crockfords in the case, said: “This case is one of the most important decisions in criminal law in a generation. In the whole range of offenses, the concept of dishonesty is at the central point, including the fraud.